


Neverland

by TheWalkingGrimes



Series: Tales of District Four [9]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Ephebophilia, F/M, I try to avoid being gratuitous though, I'm Sorry, M/M, People generally being creepy, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self-Worth Issues, Sex Trafficking, Sexual Abuse, brief allusions to biphobia, except in my use of Peter Pan allusions which are quite gratuitous, not counting the 'clients' as relationships because... no, this is dark please use caution, this is messy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:00:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28418760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWalkingGrimes/pseuds/TheWalkingGrimes
Summary: No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter.-J.M. Barrie
Relationships: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair, Mags & Finnick Odair, mentioned Finnick Odair/Original Male Character
Series: Tales of District Four [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018845
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43





	Neverland

**Author's Note:**

> Please, please be cautious reading this. Mind the tags.

Finnick’s always been a bit of a flirt. 

He learns early on that if he looks up through his eyelashes, tilts his face just right and smiles, then he gets things. Attention, money, candy, an extra helping at dinner if there’s one available. 

“Careful Nadia, you’ve got a little heartbreaker on your hands.” His mother’s friend tells her, laughing, after Finnick successfully cons her into letting him stay out with his friends for _just thirty more minutes, Mom!_ “You’re going to be beating the girls back with a broom before you know it.”

His mother rolls her eyes.

“He’s seven. Don’t be ridiculous.”

Her friend is right though. Finnick mostly spends his time with the pack of fishing boys who hang around the docks, getting into mischief when they’re not looking for extra work. But he quickly forms several close friendships with some of the girls too (the ones who aren’t in Training), and by the time he’s eleven he’s gone through at least four ‘girlfriends.’ 

At least, that’s what Lotan calls them, which Finnick refutes with a furious blush, insisting that “No, they’re just friends who _happen_ to be girls!”

“Right, and you kiss all your friends on the cheek like you do with Quinn Halloran?”

“Yes.” Finnick insists stubbornly. “Because we’re friends and that’s what friends do!”

“I don’t know why you’re so embarrassed about your girlfriend. I think it’s _sweet_ that you have a girlfriend. _”_ Lotan teases him, which gets tiny Adelaide going. 

“Finnick’s got a girlfriend!” She giggles.

“Do not!”

“Finnick’s got a girlfriend!”

“Adi, _stop,_ I do _not-”_

* * *

Finnick isn’t lying. He doesn’t see the big deal about kissing Quinn Halloran’s cheek, because that’s what he does with all his friends. 

Eventually, he does kiss her on the lips, and then two other girls later on. It’s nice. 

The night before he volunteers, he asks his friend Haf if he can kiss him just to see what it’s like.

_(It’s nicer than he thinks it’s probably supposed to be.)_

* * *

Finnick flirts with Caesar in his interview.

It’s a tactic that they usually teach the girls, the ones with the charisma and experience to pull it off. Nobody has to teach Finnick though, because he’s been doing it his entire life. 

Except now he isn’t just a little kid with a cute smile and big eyes, but a teenager in a body that isn’t trapped in awkward puberty like so many other boys his age. The other fourteen year old boy, from Eight, is gangly and covered in acne scars that even his prep team couldn’t erase. Next to Finnick, he looks like a monstrosity.

Finnick knows exactly how to play to his strengths. Perhaps more importantly, he knows how to play into the _narrative_ \- that he’s young and in over his head, that he was sent in for being pretty, to draw sponsor gifts for his District, a sacrifice for his more dangerous District partner.

There’s never a moment where Finnick doubts that he’s going to win _(the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it),_ but there’s nothing more powerful than being underestimated.

So when he leans over and takes Caesar’s hand, giving him that same smile through his eyelashes that always got him extra candy as a child, he knows what he’s doing. 

_(Well._

_He thinks he does)._

* * *

He’s hot and aching, curled on his side in the only position he’s been able to find that doesn’t make the entire back of his body feel like it’s burning. Everything hurts and his vision blurs, sick with alcohol and general nausea. His head whines like he’s in the engine room of one of the Capitol-owned trawlers, and the hand petting his hair is only making it worse.

Soon the hand is moving elsewhere, pulling on him, and Finnick lets out a weak noise - half protest, half pain, because moving _hurts_ and then there are lips at his ear.

“Get up. I want you on your hands and knees.”

Panic spikes down his spine, setting it on fire again. What? _No!_ This was supposed to be over, he can’t do that _again,_ he can’t - he can’t - he can’t -

“Get _up.”_ The hand has moved back to his hair and is tugging on it cruelly now. “I’m ready to go again.”

But Finnick isn’t. He tries to open his mouth, to explain it, reason somehow, beg miserably for just a little reprieve, _please, this isn’t fair, let me be done, I just want to go home, please I just want to go home-_

Then there’s pain, intense pain, and Finnick’s gasping, fingers ripped away from the pillowcase that he’s been clutching for the past hour (or month or year or decade - time is meaningless) as he’s forcefully rolled onto his back.

“I said.” Teeth nip on his ear and he barely even feels it. “Hands and knees. Unless you want me to fuck you like this, which trust me - you don’t.”

The fingers digging into him twist, pushing on something that makes him scream - _stopstopstopthathurtsshitthathurtssofuckingbad -_ and then they pull away. It’s only blind terror that allows Finnick to shakily push himself back up.

The pain is less crippling than it was a moment ago but it’s still unbearable and there’s no way he’s going to survive this. Not with his mind intact.

For some reason in this moment a passage from a book Mags let him borrow ages ago emerged vividly in his head, as if he can see the words on the pages again: 

_Not the pain of this but its unfairness was what dazed Peter. It made him quite helpless. He could only stare, horrified. Every child is affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but he will never afterwards be quite the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter._

It was a passage that had stuck with him, even as a child. Something about it had felt deeply profound to him, and he’d bookmarked it, returning to it over and over again as he tried to make sense of why it affected him so vividly.

Right now, it almost feels prophetic.

And so, in that beautiful Capitol bedroom, tangled in expensive sheets, Finnick tries to be like that eternal boy in the story. He lets his mind leave, drifting to some far away land where every time you breathe, a grown-up dies.

_Second star to the right, and straight on ‘til morning._

* * *

  
  


It officially starts during the 66th Victory Tour, because when he’s fifteen the idea of sleeping with him is morally repulsive to most Capitol citizens, but a few months later when he’s sixteen they’re forming a waiting list. 

He has two clients during the Capitol celebrations and they’re both women.

Finnick is surprised when he gets the first name. Not that women could be capable of cruelty - no, if ever he held onto any misconceptions about that, they were quickly disillusioned in the arena when Theta slit a younger girl from her crotch to her sternum and laughed while she choked on her own blood. But from the jokes that he’s heard from his older brother and his friends, he’d assumed his youth and inexperience wouldn’t hold much interest for them.

He’s wrong. They revel in it.

“My goodness, look at you.” His first official client breathes out when she gets him out of his clothes. Finnick gives her a shy smile - he can’t pull off cocky, not here, not yet - and tries to push away the encroaching memories of the _last_ time someone saw him naked. 

Her hands are like claws as they drag along his chest, down, down, down. 

“I feel younger just looking at you.” She whispers in his ear, and when her hands move even further down Finnick closes his eyes and pretends he’s in Neverland.

* * *

  
  


His first official male client is during the 67th Games.

Finnick has a panic attack.

He gets violently sick after one of his handlers calls him with the location, the time, and the name. Hapitha sees the mess and scolds him for letting his partying habits get ‘a bit out of hand.’ When she tries to touch him, he screams at her to get out, then his vision goes black for a while.

“Drug me.” He begs his prep team, who are pretending they have no idea what they’re preparing him for. “Please, please drug me. I don’t wanna be here for it. _Please.”_

“Finnick, be reasonable.” The head technician, Talia, smooths out the crease between his eyebrows. She’s always telling him if he doesn’t quit furrowing his eyebrows or scrunching his eyes when he smiles, he’s going to get premature wrinkles and they’ll have to start giving him injections to combat it. “You’re going on a public date in a restaurant. We can’t have you drooling on your _amuse-bouche.”_

“Then give me pain killers, at least, the non-drowsy kind.” Finnick bargains, and sees their hesitation. “Please, I don’t think I can do this if you don’t.”

Talia’s face contorts for a second. If he weren’t nauseous with terror, Finnick would tease her about getting wrinkles.

“Okay.” She finally agrees. “I can give you a small dose before you go.”

“But Talia, we’re not supposed to-”

“Give him the dose, and be quiet about it.” She snaps at the other tech.

The man is reserved, with a soft voice and a crinkled eyes. His name is Ardor and he’s older than Crassus was. 

Finnick is almost manic through the date, filling the silences with meaningless chatter about _this_ party and _that_ celebrity. Ardor speaks very little, just looking at him with an interested gaze that makes Finnick want to go underwater and never resurface. 

He’s barely holding on by the time Ardor leads them back to his house, every ounce of his self-control directed toward stopping his body from shaking. 

The only way he’s been able to get this far is by convincing himself that this is the same thing as his female clients, which had been mortifying and awful, but none of them have physically _hurt_ as bad as it had with Crassus, and he’s able to keep pretending until Ardor is taking his clothes off and touching him and guiding him onto the bed.

Finnick freezes, every muscle in his body rigid as a rock.

“Hey,” someone is saying to him, and he squeezes his eyes shut because he doesn’t want to see him, doesn’t need another face to add to his nightmares. “It’s okay, just relax.”

Hands are touching him, massaging him, trying to loosen his tense muscles, and he’s in that red and gold room again. 

“Sweetheart, you need to relax or this is going to hurt.”

 _Don’t._ He wants to beg. _Please don’t hurt me. Please._

_Phantom laughter echoes in his ears. Crassus sneers at him, his mocking words dripping onto Finnick’s skin and mixing with the sweat._

“This isn’t your first time, right? Have you really done this before?”

That’s a direct question. It takes a lot, but he’s able to force out a _“Yes”_ that sounds strangled even to his own ears. 

_What’s the matter, clever boy? You’re not enjoying your victory?_

The hands smooth down his lower back and Finnick can’t stop the full body shudder any more than he can keep in the muffled sob that accompanies it

“ _Oh.”_ The hands mercifully pull away from his body and even though Finnick knows that’s _bad_ for some reason, at the moment he isn’t even in control of his own thoughts enough to remember why. 

“Somebody hurt you, didn’t they?”

Fear tightens his throat, stopping the words from coming out. He’s not in control of his thoughts, but Finnick knows better than to answer that question.

“Fuck.”

The word is harsh even in Ardor’s soft voice. Finnick gathers his wits enough to turn and see the older man looking at him like he’s seeing Finnick in a new light.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” He says, sounding a bit lost. 

Finnick’s brain is unfogging enough now that he’s reminded of all the warnings his handlers have given him about the consequences of leaving anyone _disappointed._

He props himself up on his elbows. “It’s okay, I just got nervous. I’m still a bit new at this,” Finnick forces himself to give Ardor a smile that he hopes is inviting, with the patented through-the-eyelashes look that has always gotten him out of trouble, and tilts his head. “We can try again.”

Ardor shakes his head. “You’re _scared_ of me.” There’s a note of bewilderment in his voice, like he can’t possibly fathom how that could be the case. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be. This is supposed to be a good thing for both of us.”

If he weren’t so terrified, Finnick might be laughing. A _good thing?_ The only good thing he’s getting out of any of this is his family staying alive.

“This is supposed to be my thank you for a donation I made,” Ardor explains to him, and it almost sounds like an apology. “You’re a beautiful boy Finnick, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t wanted this for some time, but it’s obvious that someone has mistreated you. If you’re not going to enjoy yourself then neither will I.”

Mistreated. Is that the word they’re going with?

Ardor is looking at him like he expects Finnick to reply, so Finnick licks his lips, thinks for a few moments, and finally admits carefully, 

“If you don’t enjoy yourself then that won’t be a good thing for _me.”_

It’s risky, but Finnick is latching onto the sliver of humanity that Ardor is showing him, hoping it’s a sign of some deeper kindness and empathy. 

Ardor lives in a different plane of existence than him though. He looks Finnick up and down and down and says quietly, “I can teach you how to enjoy it, if you want.”

What Finnick _wants_ is for Ardor to agree to lie for him - to let him spend the night, maybe even let him watch a movie or a tv show, cocooned in blankets, and to not touch him.

“Okay,” he agrees. 

* * *

Finnick leaves with an aching back and a sapphire encrusted watch on his wrist. It takes a few days before he’s able to sit on any hard surface without wincing, but it’s a lingering discomfort that feels more similar to the aftermath of his female clients than that time with Crassus. Ardor was almost _too_ gentle with him, in a way he will learn in time is somehow worse than violence, because it is more of an assault on his mind than on his body.

But... he doesn’t have a panic attack the next time.

* * *

People look at him differently when he goes home.

It takes a bit of time for Finnick to notice it, and then even longer to convince himself it really _isn’t_ in his head. He kept expecting it the year before, when he was sure that Crassus’s touch had been burned into his skin like a brand mark. But nobody had seen it.

Somehow, for some reason, this year they do.

He isn’t imagining the fresh whispers that follow him, although they dissipate like the morning mist as soon as he gets within earshot. Some of the mothers pull their daughters away from him, and a few of the girls who used to smile and flirt with him now have a defensive edge to their voices. Others are more eager for some reason, blatant in a way that shocks him. 

One of the girls suggests they meet up on the dunes later that night and Finnick - taken aback by her forwardness - rejects her with a laugh born mostly from awkwardness but it comes across meaner. 

The girl turns red with humiliation and says, “So you really _are_ too good for us now, huh?”

_(The fact that he doesn’t put the pieces together then and there really just proves that he doesn’t want to.)_

His mother slaps down the newspaper - “newspaper” is a generous term, it’s nothing more than carefully curated Capitol propaganda - in front of him while he’s eating breakfast, and Finnick nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Explain this to me.” She orders him curtly. 

Finnick follows the line of her accusational index finger, and his heart drops.

It’s him. A photo of him with his arm around a woman, as they enter her townhouse. 

_(Camelia Fairtide. One of Snow’s closest advisors. They arranged to meet up at a nightclub. She scratched his back and bit him when she came. When it was over she gave him a bag of money that he didn’t want, but hasn’t been able to will himself to dispose of.)_

“During the Games,” His mother says in the same tone she used on Lotan when she found a box of condoms in his room when he was still in school, “When they kept showing all those clips of you at parties, with all these women, I kept telling myself that none of that is actually real. That’s what you said last year, that most of what you see on the camera is fake. But _that’s_ not fake, Finnick. You went home with this woman. With _multiple people,_ according to the article.”

“I -” His eyes skitter to the headline. _Finnick Odair - Panem’s Newest Playboy._ He can’t read more than a few lines of the article - _partying, seen out with some of Panem’s richest citizens, walks of shame -_ without feeling like he’s about to throw up. 

His gaze lingers on the part that speculates on his sexuality - _is Finnick really bisexual or is he just messing around? -_ and is worried he’s about to cry. He thinks about the feel of Haf’s lips against his and wanting to talk to his mom about it but not knowing how. 

And there it is plastered across a Capitol newspaper as if it’s everyone’s business now. 

“I’m sorry.” Finnick says in a small voice. “This isn’t - this isn’t how I wanted you to find out.”

She follows his line of sight and softens moderately. “Finnick - this isn’t about _that._ I know you’re young and you’re still figuring things out. It’s okay if you don’t have all the answers, or if the answer is that you’re interested in boys as well as girls.”

_(This should be a huge moment of relief, but of course it was stolen from him because that’s what the Capitol does._

_They just take.)_

“What bothers me,” His mother goes on with the specific type of anger only worried parents seem capable of, “is the carelessness of it. And that woman looks my age, at least, and she’s - she’s one of _them._ Is that you really who you want to be spending your time with? Is that who you want to be associated with?”

 _I didn’t want to sleep with her._ He suddenly wants to tell his mother. _I didn’t want it._ _They made me do it._

_She raped me._

But looking at the picture, where he’s got his arm low on her waist and she’s nuzzling her face into his neck, that word almost mocks him. Nobody would ever believe that. No one would ever believe he didn’t want it.

And suddenly the reason for why _this_ of all things has made its way into the official Capitol propaganda becomes clear to Finnick.

 _We own you,_ they’re telling him, and the rest of the world. _Finnick Odair is one of us. Finnick Odair is Capitol Property._

Finnick realizes why some of the Avoxes he’s seen have been looking at him oddly when he’s with his clients. His tongue might still be in his head, but they know that there is more that holds them in common than sets them apart. 

They’re _commiserating_ with him. 

He looks back at the picture. No, she didn’t rape him. You can’t rape something you own.

Finnick forces a smile on his face when he looks back at his mother. It feels dead.

“Sorry mom, guess I just let it get a little out of hand. It’s easy to get caught up when you’re there.”

She looks disappointed, but not surprised. Sighs, like she was expecting this response. “Don’t let it happen again, Finnick.”

“I won’t.” He lies. 

* * *

He never tells her the truth and lives with her disappointed sighs until the day that they stop altogether.

A very ugly, selfish part of him wonders if someone explained the entire situation to her before they killed her. As much as he can’t bear the thought of her dying knowing it was his fault, there is some small comfort in the chance that she died knowing he wasn’t Capitol property by choice.

* * *

Haf volunteers when they’re eighteen. The silence between them is like ice any time they’re in the same room together.

Finnick watches him die at a viewing party. Haf cries out for his mother around a mouthful of blood while Leome Nighflake gropes Finnick’s ass. 

Two days later, Finnick sleeps with Hapitha.

He’s drunk, still coming down from a night out where thankfully he didn’t have any appointments, and she’s there. They talk about her life when she’s not working for the Games - Finnick is surprised to learn that while being an escort is a prestigious position, it’s not as high paying as he assumed and she has an office job that she uses to support her income during the rest of the year - and she loves the attention he’s giving her.

When she puts her hand in his lap it’s like a reflex, really.

She falls asleep immediately and he tries to slip out of her room undetected... and of course immediately comes face to face with Mags.

 _“Finnick.”_ Mags says, in a tone that is more annoyed than anything else. “Please tell me this is not what I think it is.”

He could lie, but this is Mags and he’s never really been able to get away with anything with her.

Also, he probably could have put a bit more effort into buttoning his shirt properly.

“Sorry.” Finnick mumbles, and she sighs before leading him into her own room and putting her arms on her hips.

“I hope I don’t need to explain to you _why_ sleeping with our escort is a colossally bad idea.” 

“No.” He pinches the bridge of his nose and wishes he’d remembered to take his anti-hangover pills. “We’re supposed to be focused on the tributes when we’re in here. No distractions.”

“And Hapitha is already so easily distractible.” Mags keeps her mouth in a stern line. “I also hope it’s not something you’re planning on doing again.”

Finnick shakes his head empathetically, surprised at the amount of shame he feels. He’d thought that he’d be immune to that by this point. “Definitely not. It was stupid, I know it was stupid. I didn’t mean to. I just…” He trails off, meeting Mags’s unimpressed gaze. “I thought she was a client.” 

The rapidness at which Mags’s expression changes is startling. “She _told_ you that?” She asks, looking like she’s about to go hunt down the largest, sharpest object on their floor and go wake Hapitha up with it. 

_“No.”_ Finnick quickly backtracks, realizing what Mags thinks happened. “We were just drunk and my brain just… I thought it was what I was supposed to do, at first. But she didn’t do anything wrong.”

“That’s debatable.” But Mags looks softer now, and she sits down on the bed next to him. “Are you going to be okay with her around? We can put in a request for a replacement.”

“I don’t want to do that to her. It’ll be okay - I’ll - I’ll talk to her, and make sure she knows it won’t happen again.” And god will _that_ be an awkward conversation. Mags is still looking at him like he’s sick or something, so Finnick feels the need to tell her - despite the awkwardness, “It was okay.” 

Because there had been a point, when they were back in her room and Hapitha was looking at him like all her dreams were coming true, that Finnick had come back to himself and realized he didn’t _have_ to sleep with her. 

But he’d been curious what it would be like, and honestly figured that the awkwardness of backing out at that point would be worse to deal with than anything else. And as annoying as Hapitha can be, she’s not rich or influential enough to be any real threat to him, so it had felt almost… not _safe,_ exactly, but the closest he’s ever felt to it during sex.

Not that he’ll tell Mags any of that. 

“Hmmm.” Mags is unimpressed once more, though she’s relaxing and looking at him more like he’s an idiot teenage boy again rather than some kind of victim. “My advice would be that when you talk to Hapitha, you find a better way of putting it than ‘It was okay.’”

He laughs, feeling his face heat up with the unbearable awkwardness of the situation.

“Finnick.” The humor leaves Mags’s voice, but she doesn’t sound angry. “I don’t want you to feel ashamed for having sex. It’s a healthy, natural thing. I just want to make sure you know where the boundaries are. Someone like Hapitha is probably not the best choice, unless you do have feelings for her-”

“No, definitely not.”

“Good, because you can do much better than her anyway.” Mags says definitively. “You deserve better than to throw yourself away like you don’t matter. You’re worth more than that.”

It’s sweet of her to say that, but Finnick knows better. He’s not worth anything. His body may be worth an immeasurable amount of money, but Finnick himself? He’s worthless. 

Who would ever want him if they saw him for who - _what_ \- he really is?

That is not a path he feels like going down with Mags right now, so Finnick just nods and gives her a facetious grin. “Whoever it is will have to live up to _your_ impossibly high standards, Mags. You’ve ruined me for anyone else, you know.”

She shakes her head at him.

“We’ll see.”

* * *

The first time Annie touches him, she hesitates.

They’re in her bed, which is something that’s been happening for the past couple months without either of them really addressing it. They don’t talk about the way that he climbs into bed with her and spoons himself around her, or how she’s made a ritual out of tucking his hand between hers and kissing it goodnight before she drifts off. 

They _certainly_ don’t talk about how in the past few weeks they’ve started exchanging kisses in the morning - shy at first, and then gradually becoming more hungry. 

That specific morning in question, Annie’s hair is wild and her lips are swollen. Her sleep shirt is half unbuttoned and she’s stroking her hands almost reverently against his bare chest.

She's so beautiful to him. Finnick aches from how badly he wants her.

So he catches one of her hands in his, trying to direct it downward. He feels her breath catch against his neck as the hand he’s holding freezes and Finnick pulls back instinctively.

“What is it?” He asks her, worried. “Is that too fast, sorry, I don’t know...”

... _what I’m doing._ Because, ridiculously, he doesn’t. He has no idea what is normal. What this is supposed to be like. 

Everything that he knows about sex is wrong and terrible and entrenched in self-preservation. He’s disgusting in a way that goes deeper than all the invisible marks left on his skin by dozens of grimy hands. It’s his soul that’s really been damaged the most.

It’s a miracle that Annie even lets him touch her. 

And honestly, not a surprise that he’s already messing this up. That was inevitable. “We can slow down if that’s what you want. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to pressure you.”

“No, no, I want to, I just…” Her eyes are filled with so much care that Finnick thinks he might drown in it. “Finnick, do _you_ want me to touch you?”

The question is simple, almost childishly innocent. It seems so ordinary coming out of her mouth.

No one has ever asked him that. 

_“Yes.”_ He says urgently. “Please, Annie, I need you, I-”

_\- love you. Love you so much._

“Okay,” She says, kissing his shoulder and trailing her fingers down his abdomen. “Let me take care of you then.”

 _I love you,_ Finnick thinks again, as he keens into her touch. He can’t say it yet, scared that if he does she’ll realize how deep he’s fallen with her and she’ll run away before he can inflict any more damage to her. Maybe that’s selfish.

Right now, Finnick will be selfish and love Annie in the only way he can, with tender kisses on her neck as he lets himself come apart under her soft fingers. 

* * *

He doesn’t go anywhere else in his mind when she touches him. He doesn’t need to.

There’s no safer place than in Annie’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> If you need a happy palate-cleanser after this, please read [If I Could Change The Way You See Yourself](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27856401), which chronologically takes place a couple months after the last scene in this one. 
> 
> I went back and forth for awhile on Finnick being bisexual (I am bisexual, and while I like the representation, I am reluctant to base his sexuality off the fact that Katniss is gender neutral when she refers to his 'lovers', because they are his abusers and that's not the same thing.) but eventually decided to go with 'yes' because I could see the Capitol picking up on his bisexuality when he's a teenager and exploiting it like they do everything else. So that will be a facet that gets explored in future installments, and hopefully in a less angsty way.
> 
> I also wanted to find a happy medium between the "Annie is the only person Finnick has ever kissed that wasn't abuse" trope and the "Finnick is hypersexual and sleeps with everyone" trope, and feel satisfied with the messiness of this narrative. 
> 
> The other thing I want to be clear about is that Finnick's panic attack about his male client is based on the fact that his first experience was so traumatic. It is not based on internalized homophobia (which is sort of what that entire section was about, but just in case anyone missed that).
> 
> Again, I apologize for... this, and how dark it is. Hopefully the ending makes up for it a little bit?


End file.
